mandag 26. februar 2018

Day 1

Today we went to the store and got hold of a Dodge Ram (for my son) and a Ford Fairlane (for me, keeping it classy). Plastic board and tubing has been purchased. Tomorrow we will start adding on the guns and armor plating, and get these little guys ready for the post-apocalypse!

I am looking forward to this, I haven't really done any real hobby projects since picking up miniatures again, just spent all the time painting and playing. Gaslands seems pretty much the perfect game to focus on the hobby side of miniature gaming, I hope my son will enjoy it as well!

Day 2

Two hours of cutting and gluing!

Cars outfitted with guns, spikes, and armor plating! My son cut out little foam figures as well, to man the turret on his Dodge Ram and wave guns out the windows.

Ready for mayhem! Check out that ramming spike.

And the wheel spikes!

I have to admit his is already cooler than mine. Next step will be priming the models!

torsdag 22. februar 2018

After the Friday Regional Cup I was signed up for a tournament on Saturday as well. I had two decisive losses, and a headache that was getting steadily worse (not why I lost, I got totally outplayed!). I decided to drop from the Saturday tournament and get better instead.

I took some headache pills, got some rest and food, and when I was feeling well again I decided to try out some of the miniature games being demoed.

Godtear

The first one I checked out was Godtear from Steamforged. It was an early alpha version.

You had a couple of champions with associated minions that moved around on a hex grid, where they could move and bash the other player's dudes. The main ways of scoring was planting flags or beating up enemy models.

The game was pretty complicated. You had two different phases, where one was each player taking his turn, and the other one had each model take his turn. The cards were flipped an abilities changed between each phase. Also, there were 5 different special dice, and the dice types you rolled changed based on the number of models in a hex as well.

A bunch of good looking models fighting over some rather plain looking hexes.

In addition, you could apply statuses, which were dice on the board. There was no real room for these dice, so at times it was unclear which dice belonged to which model.

Overall the early alpha prototype felt like an early alpha prototype. It was overly complicated, without any clear benefit gained. I had no inclination to giving it another go after the first game. The rules need to be simpler, less fiddly and more streamlined. Also, blocking off and killing banners is not a very exciting mechanic.

Well, it's early days, I guess, I'd be happy to try it again some time in the future. The models were pretty nice,. I especially liked the big golem and demon.

Gaslands

The next game was Gaslands, a crazy Mad Max inspired racing game using Matchbox cars instead of miniatures. The movement was done in X-Wing style, placing a movement template, moving your car, and rolling dice to see how well (or, quite often, totally disastrous) it went.

It was hilarious. Fast play, great risk/reward mechanics as higher speeds changed your movement options and made things harder, but allowed you to do more moves and get further in a turn.

A super enthusiastic guy was holding the demos.

Cars flipped and crashed and spun around, but sometimes you could take the negative effects and turn them into something positive, like trying to spin and slide into better positions. There was a very thematic rule that if you were in a situation where you were not sure if (say) two cars were colliding, whatever would cause the most damage would be the result!

I don't think it would work well as a competitive game, since you would have effects like a longer car model actually going faster. But for a crazy and not so serious beer-and-pretzels game, it seemed perfect. I can only imagine the mayhem if you were playing a handful of players. Definitely the best and most original of the new games I tried out over the weekend!

Mythos

There was one single table which was busy all of Saturday, and that was Mythos from Paranoid Miniatures. On Sunday morning I went straight there to get a demo game. I am a big Lovecraft fan, so I was looking forward to this one.

My squad of brave investigators

I picked the good guys in the Priory: One mad professor and his cat, a guy with a flamethrower and a crush on his fellow archeologist spellcaster, and a golem.

The professor and his cat

It was a well executed game, I think. Typical X-Com style play, where each models gets two activations that can be used for anything. Abilities were opposed dice rolls, so you could for example attack someone in melee, and if the defender won, the attacker would take damage.

Of course, there was insanity involved! When characters go mad and flip out their cards are flipped, changing the character stats and abilities. Also, they then start to roll for whether they go limp with fear, or maybe even run away. I felt that the insanity effects were a bit bland, mostly a status effect. It worked fine mechanically, but perhaps adding a card deck of all kinds of phobias would be more thematic and fun!

Very nice looking board that they had built

There was also a pool of Myth you could use to fire special abilities, but it did not seem to prevent you from doing anything. It seemed like a lot of bookkeeping for little in game effect, I think it could just be removed.

All in all a decent game, good flow, well designed. I would be happy to play it again!

Some Mage Duel Game That I Forget What Was Called

The game was intended to simulate epic mage combat, but it felt more like epic bookkeeping. You had one or two models a side, that did some damage, applied some debuffs, or moved the opponent around a bit. Few models meant few positioning options, and many of the spells did fairly similar things (I had 4 spells that would cause the opponent's activation to cost more actions, for example).

Very nice looking game board!

When I thought it was over, it turned out that my opponent had a 60% death save, for some inexplicable reason. I had to kill him six times before he finally rolled a 7+ on a D10... I mean, come on, really, some luck is fine, but don't have mechanics like that.

Not sure if a 1vs1 Wizard battle is really a good idea for a miniatures game, it seems like something that might be better as a card game.

The miniatures were good looking, and they had made a beautiful board to play on.

Summary

Great to see so many new games being demoed! There were more games as well, but these four demos where what I had time for.

A photo of the Infinity tables, because Infinity tables are always awesome.

The last match of the tournament is against Eleonora, who is playing for the Swiss WTC team. I go for a pure scoring team with Shark. Salt is a pretty good ball carrier here, since his kick is a very short 4". It's hard for Obulus to get the ball of him reliably.

Fishermen

Shark
Salt
Greyscales
Hag
Sakana
Siren

Morticians

Really heavy takeout team, so I will just have to try to survive long enough to score my three goals.

Obulus
Dirge
Casket
Cosset
Graves
Brainpan & Memory

Round 1

Obulus kicks off.

Shark: 6, Salt: 1, Greyscales: 1Hag: 1, Sakana: 1, Siren: 3

Siren has 3 so that I have the possibility of getting the ball back if it gets stolen.

I get the ball over to Salt. Sakana gets pulled in by Obulus. Shark is able to get the first goal. 4-0 to the Fishermen!

Round 2

Shark: 6, Salt: 1, Greyscales: 4, Hag: 1, Sakana: 1, Siren: 1

There is a lot of ball killing and general milling about. No-one scores anything.

Round 3

Shark: 6, Salt: 1, Greyscales: 4, Hag: 0, Sakana: 0, Siren: 3

Greyscales gets the second goal. Both Sakana and Shark are taken out, those Morticians hit pretty hard! Memory scores. It's an even 8-8!

Round 4

Shark: 6, Salt: 1, Greyscales: 4, Hag: 0, Sakana: 0, Siren: 3

I get the ball off Brainpan, and kick it up the field. Greyscales grabs it and gets his second goal of the match!

The match ends 12-8 to the Fishermen, pretty close game! The tournament is over, I place 7th out of 25 players, which I am very happy with!

Fourth game I run into Aaron Wilson, current ranked #34 in the world. It's a Corsair mirror, fairly similar teams. I have Veteran Siren versus his Siren, and I have Avarisse and Greede versus his Gutter. My team is a bit punchier, but Aaron has more control abilities.

Nice Fishermen

My idea here is to use Tentacles and Veteran Siren to make it hard to damage my guys.

Corsair
Tentacles
Hag
Sakana
Veteran Siren
Avarisse & Greede

Nasty Fishermen

Corsair
Tentacles
Hag
Sakana
Siren
Gutter

Round 1

There are quite a lot of obstacles so it's going to be interesting to see who gets those drags off.

It's mostly positioning in the first round. My Veteran Siren gets pulled out of position by Nasty Siren, and ends up knocked down.

Round 2

Veteran Siren gets beaten up. I then drag in Nasty Corsair and take him out. 2-2.

Round 3

Gutter kills off Nice Tentacles, and Siren gets the ball and scores. Aaron is ahead, 2-7. Nasty Hag hides behind a wall, and I am unable to get any good drags off.

Round 4

Nasty Corsair takes out Nice Hag, and Avarisse and Greed get a takeout, I think it was Corsair again. Siren grabs the ball and scores one more time. 13-4 to Aaron!

Aaron was way better at using the obstacles to deny me the good engagements. I thought I had a chance when I got his Corsair early. Veteran Siren was probably a mistake here, I should have taken normal Siren as well. It's quite important to have two models than can reposition the enemies.

Alchemists

Round 1

Midas kicks off.

Shark: 6, Salt: 2, Greyscales: 1, Hag: 1, Siren: 1, Sakana: 2

Compound makes a good job blocking me off, and the balls is also stolen off me by Midas and passed up to Vitriol, so I am unable to make my first turn goal. I rather build some momentum and get Shark into position.

Round 2

Shark: 6, Salt: 2, Greyscales: 2, Hag: 0, Siren: 3, Sakana: 2

The plan is to start with Shark, and then use Siren to try to retrieve the ball again later in the turn.

Shark scores. I then have a pretty funny play with Hag, using her legendary to trap Midas in between the shed, Hag and Sakana.

Siren grabs the ball with her wily charms, and gets into a good position for the next turn.

Round 3

Shark: 6, Salt: 0, Greyscales: 4, Hag: 0, Sakana: 1, Siren: 3

Siren moves up and scores, 8-0 to the Fishermen!

My Hag play from last turn actually worked. Hemdrik the Brit has some poor dice rolls and is unable to get Midas out to retrieve the ball and score.

Greyscales is then able to retrieve the ball and gets it up to Shark, who taps it in. A perfect 12-0!

Hemrik the Brit had some terrible dice rolls in there. I, however, am quite happy with how the match went. 2-1 in the tournament so far! Next match it's the Corsair mirror, hope it won't be a drag (ahem).

For the second match I get a match against Rich Green, currently ranked #47 in the world. Well, this is why I am here in England (well, except for the fun, the games, the socializing, the Fish'n'Chips, the excellent beer and cider) - to get my ass kicked by people who are way better than me at this game, and hopefully learn something in the process.

I have not played against Hammer, but I hear he is considered one of the better captains.

Fishermen

Corsair
Tentacles
Hag
Sakana
Siren
Avarisse & Greede

Masons

Hammer
Marbles
Brick
Flint
Mallet
Tower

Round 1

I get to kick, and choose the side with no obstructions in the middle. Corsair moves up and lands a pretty good kick. Mallet has to move far up.

Mallet is pullet in and beaten up. I manage to screw up my very last activation, and trigger a countercharge from both Marbles and Brick into Tentacles. Suddenly Corsair is crowded out twice and then Hammer runs in and starts hitting, dealing a ton of damage and taking him down to 7 health. This is really bad!

Round 2

Hammer takes out Corsair. This of means my damage output is now much lower than his. Not looking good!

Round 3

Both Avarisse and Hag are taken out, Masons are up 8-2.

Round 4

Flint lands a goal. Masons beat me 2-12!

Phew, that was rough. The double counter charge but me in a horrible position, and it went quickly downhill from there. Hammer seems strong and flexible, I definitely need some more games into him. Rich played a very tight game, very friendly guy.

Tournament time! The first game of the day is Shark vs Theron, piloted by Graham. Super nice guy, we had a very good time!

Fishermen

Shark (Captain)
Tentacles (Mascot)
Greyscales
Hag
Sakana
Siren

Hunters

Theron
Fahad
Egret
Hearne
Jaecar
Ulfr

Round 1

Shark: 6, Tentacles: 2, Greyscales: 2, Hag: 0, Sakana: 2, Siren: 1

Egret's kick is a miskick so I get to place the ball on Greyscales.

Shark is pretty hard to block off, so he bounces off Hearne and lands the first goal. 4-0 to the Fishermen! Ulfr is the last to activate so he grabs the ball and moves up.

Round 2

Shark: 6, Tentacles: 1, Greyscales: 4, Hag: 1 Sakana: 3, Siren: 1

I intend to either peel the ball of Ulfr, or let him score and then pass it up to Shark.

Ulfr first measures up to Greyscales, but I remind him about the unpredictable. So he bounces off Tentacles instead and scores. 4-4. Theron beats up Siren and it's 4-6 to the Hunters. The ball is passed up to Sakana and he scores, 8-6 to the Fishermen. Egret takes out Hag. The ball is kicked down the field and ends up with Fahad.

Round 3

Shark: 6, Tentacles: 1, Greyscales: 4, Hag: 0, Sakana: 4, Siren: 0

I just need that last goal. Siren and Hag deploys into melee with Fahad. Greyscales takes the ball off Fahad and kicks it up the field. Hearne makes a valiant attempt to get the ball but with both Shark and Sakana there it's pretty much game.

Sharks taps the ball in, and it's 12-8 to the Fishermen!

First game win, the best start to any tournament! Next match, Hammer time.

The Friday tournament consisted of 25 player, with Fishermen being the most popular (5 players). I know the Brits happen to be pretty good at this game, and the Norwegian scene is mostly pretty new, so I was expecting heavy resistance. I had also been caught up playing mostly Through the Ages the last couple of months, instead of getting in my reps.

I was hoping for maybe going even, playing some of the high ranked players, and pick up some clever tactics!

There were several players from Switzerland, and me as the lone Norwegian.

torsdag 15. februar 2018

Fishermen, Union and Brewers are packed and ready to travel to BonesCon 2018! I, however, am woefully unprepared for the tournaments, having spent most of my board gaming time on Through the Ages since Yule.

I will be playing Corsair and Shark, since that was what I was playing last year. I also brought extra models for some casual games. :D

We'll see how it goes, I am looking forward to a weekend of meeting fellow gamers, rolling dice, pushing toy football players around the pitch, and tasting some of that English beer!